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Friday, August 17, 2012

Who in the World is Narrating this Story?

You want your
readers to get to know your characters. That’s crucial for establishing a
reader-main character connection. If that connection is not there, your reader
might not continue reading.

But you can’t make
a laundry list of who your character is. No one wants to sit through even a
paragraph of: Character A loves the color green, has an irrational fear of
puppies, and not so secretly wishes her sister would clean her half of the
room. Bored yet?

In my last post, I
mentioned using details to show things about the characters. But how do you do
that?

Think about the
color green. What is your reaction to someone giving you a green shirt? If
green is your absolute favorite color, you’d see it and be excited. If you
loathe green like no other color, you’d note it and perhaps be annoyed. If you
are completely indifferent to the color green, then you might not even think about the
color.

Or with puppies.
Someone who is deathly afraid of puppies will describe a great dane puppy
galloping towards them entirely different from someone who adores dogs. With
that detail and how you describe it, you wouldn’t necessarily even have to tell
the reader that Character A is scared of dogs. If the reader sees the sharp
toothed, glinty eyed beast charging and the character nearly peeing themselves,
then they know that Character A is scared of dogs.

In my last post, I
asked if you should describe tattered, stained carpets. How would the carpet be
described by the following characters:

A young couple
walking into the house they just bought.

A little kid who
has lived there his entire life.

A frazzled mother
whose in-laws are coming over in an hour.

A hostage.

Each of these
characters would describe the same tattered, stained carpets entirely
different. I’m not completely certain the kid would even notice or describe the
carpets unless a. the stains were shaped like Mickey Mouse or b. In the
very very recent past, they caused one of the stains.

Any other thoughts
on letting the details work to show your readers your characters?